At this point, I’m sure you have a bunch of questions, and I can already see a flood of comments coming in. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to answer all of your questions today.

Please know that we are sincere in our effort to help, and we working as quickly as possible to get you as much information as possible. I realize that this has been a frustrating journey, and I'm asking for just a little more patience as we get going.

I would like to start by taking a moment to introduce myself. My name is Matthew Scott, and I am the CEO of Little Orbit. We started as a small game developer in 2003, and have grown into a small publisher in the last 7 years. To date we have primarily focused on retail with 20 titles on many different platforms working alongside Cartoon Network, Dreamworks, Warner Bros, and Mattel.

Inevitably many of you will google us, and you may have your doubts - which is okay. This project has struggled. But give us a little time, and hopefully we'll surprise you.

I am a gamer at heart, and my first love has always been turn-based tactics games. I met the Playdek team a couple months ago and got a firsthand look at the amazing work from Yasumi Matsuno. Simply put, this game needs to exist, so I am excited to be taking this project over and helping deliver it to the community.

I am also a huge fan of Kickstarter, and its ability to directly connect people with the creators they want to support. Since 2009, I have followed and personally backed many video game projects. I know each of these teams worked long and hard to live up to their campaign promises. Many of them managed to create amazing games that likely wouldn’t have been possible in the traditional system.

As we have seen this is a difficult business. There are so many things that can go wrong to sabotage even the most seasoned teams. But despite all the challenges, making games is what I love to do.

I recognize that this project is now more than 2 years late from when it was originally supposed to ship, but rather than jump into lofty promises, I want to level set expectations with a bit of both bad and good news.

First the bad news.. Little Orbit is starting from scratch. We have spent hours going through the Kickstarter comments and researching all of the project materials, and I feel the backers have made one thing clear – we need to focus on the original single player game and Matsuno’s design that was promoted during the campaign. And that is exactly what we are going to do. At this point, our primary goal is to separate the years of modifications and changes that were made while Playdek attempted to deliver something to their backers.

Second the good news.. And I want to make this absolutely clear - Little Orbit will honor the Kickstarter backer rewards at no extra cost. I can't know how frustrating this has been for the many fans of this game. But over the coming weeks we will be reaching out to make sure we have all the current information for each of you, so that rewards can be delivered properly as we make progress.

That’s all I can share for now, but we will be following up as soon as possible with more details on the game and our progress.

Comments

You guys remember that sunken feeling you got when your parents told you "I'm not mad - I'm just disappointed"? That's where I'm at with this game.

Thing is, I love FFT so much that I'll keep coming back for as much punishment as this game can dish out.

Those sounded more negative than I wanted them to, but we can't change the past. Even if we got PS1 graphics and such, even a FFT clone would be great to see at this point. If you can pull off the full scope of the project, the entire RPG gaming community will do backflips.

If all this is really true, i feel sad for you, cause' you -like us, got fooled by then. Anyway, good luck with it, but I'm not waiting for nothing more of this Kickstarter, so whatever comes will be a plus. Before there i just wanted my money back, now i just want to have some way to put those jerks on jail. But for the game, whatever, hopes very low.
Good luck.

Eh, still writing it as a loss, I can't imagine you guys could come up with the game we were promised. Looked at another way, had you not had all the big names given in the original campaign you wouldn't have gotten nearly as much funding or, honestly, probably even been funded.

Unfortunately I know how this works. You're going to release a garbage of a game just to wipe your hands clean of obligations and hopefully rake in a bit of profit, but whatever, it's not like this is exactly new on kickstarter.

Luckily for every piece of trash like Unsung Story I made the mistake of backing there are 5 games I thoroughly loved and was proud to back, so screw it.

I had all but written up backing this project as a loss. This seems to be a risky move for those of you at Little Orbit! I respect your commitment to honor the rewards us backers had originally been promised. If you pull this off, though, you stand to gain a ton of good will and respect! I wish you guys the best of luck! Thank you for the update.

Very brave, Little Orbit. It's true, we've been quite burned by Playdek. But I will put my hopes with you, and I can see others doing the same. I don't care what the timeline is for this game, I understand the hurdles you must be going through to try to make this happen. The only thing I hope you do better than Playdek is stay in touch. I think we would all appreciate once a month updates. It doesn't have to be anything detailed(Though it can be if you want). Just something saying "Hey, we are here, and we're in the planning steps for X, Y and Z. See you next month!"

My own reward notwithstanding, I genuinely wish you and Little Orbit the best of luck, and hope you're as forthcoming to the backers in future (semi-frequent?) updates as you are with this initial one. Thank you.

Superbacker

Thank you for this post, Matthew. I have faith and I am entirely willing to give you a chance and see what you guys come up with. You're stepping into a real mess, voluntarily, and I have an insane amount of respect for you and your team for that. Good luck and thank you for rescuing this project.

Honestly in the single update you made Matthew I have more faith in this project than I have in a long time. I began to doubt as soon as playdek started seeming to focus on PvP and multiplayer over the single player so honestly, I'm excited about this going forward. Best of luck. And thank you for giving the project a second chance.

To be honest the pathetic updates of the developers had long made it clear the game was doomed and the money wasted. I wish the best of you guys; and if you develop a good game you'll have my support in the future.

As angry as I am at Playdek for wasting our time and money, I'm glad to read this post. Most of us have written this off as a complete loss. That being said, this is an opportunity for your small company to go a completely different direction — you guys have a lot of work to do, and I hope you and your team are ready! Good luck.

My advice: a small, solid game is better than a huge dream that never gets finished. Go as simple as you and your team can manage.

Thank you Matthew for this update. I appreciate that your update empathizes with many of us who expected a good product and then were lied to for years. I appreciate that you understand that some of us are suspicious of the game's direction considering the company's previous products. As a former developer on a few low relatively-low budget Kickstarter projects, I can understand your sincerity to genuinely want to build the game that we backed.

The only thing I can ask is for monthly updates. No matter how small the update may be, I think those of us who have been given multiple years of radio silence on this project from Playdek would appreciate more than anything a monthly update to show your studio's commitment to the project.

In the interest of transparency, I think it would be useful to provide a rough inventory of just what assets Playdek actually created with the Kickstarter funds that actually pertain to the game originally outlined. Is there a full script, design documents, concept art, music, any of that?

I doubt most of their existing code base (assuming they programmed much in the first place) is very useful, but it would be nice to know if any is salveagable.

Great update! Happy to hear of the change in management and am looking forward to hearing more on the progress of this game in the future - please be sure to provide regularly scheduled updates! Playdeck was notoriously bad about updating and most always, the updates were filled with confusing, negative news :-/ Anyhow, I hope the backers here will be understanding of your situation - many have already voiced their support for your current plan of starting over and I feel the same. Also, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask! Send a survey, etc. - this is a very positive start, so it's feeling like backers will be happy to engage with you :)

I assume that the initial KS funds have been spent. Where is the money for development coming from? Admittedly I had written this project off a long time ago. I was shocked to see the update in my email inbox. Good luck Matthew! I hope you can make this work.

I know this is being flooded in comments and this may not be seen, but if you're truly starting from scratch I have two suggestions:

1. Partner with Stoic who already has a fantastic engine for their Banner Saga games designed for Final Fantasy Tactics-style combat. That way when you're starting from scratch you're not 100% starting from scratch.

2. People want to know that they're getting great tactic combat. Nailing that is super important so why not be transparent with that development process? Publish basic mechanics on forums or a blog where backers can "playtest" with miniatures and dice at home. Let the community help you polish and develop the mechanics while the story is kept under lock and key.

Time to update the campaign page to reflect this new change.
Was watching video talking about Kickstarter fails and thought about this game, came back to see if there was any updates and was greeted with a pleasant surprise. Hope for more updates and interactions to come, perhaps a nice ending to all of this.
Good luck.

You are setting a positive precedent, and should be applauded!
The majority of backers, like myself, are here for a love of Final Fantasy Tactics, and individuals who contributed to that title, who were meant to work on Unsung Story.

The lack of any meaningful usable work done by Playdek, is no love lost to anyone, and a blessing in disguise. Taking your words at face-value, I'd rather see a team working out of passion for the property, without the constraints/shortcuts of existing work/assets.

I've worked as a developer, as well as project administration, public relations...
That you are willing to take on a well publicized 'disaster' shows that you are willing to take on considerable risks to pursue projects you have faith in.
I hope for every success, and that this may take Little Orbit beyond the treadmill of licensed 'shovelware' projects.

Engage with us, communicate with us regularly, show us transparency, and I promise you, most of us will work with you to help you deliver a winning product to your audience.
I myself backed as a 'design consultant', and would relish the opportunity at any stage to contribute and assist with getting this project off the ground and to gold.

Ultimately, It doesn't matter if it's 2015. Or 2020. If the world sees fit to give us a spiritual off-spring to 'Final Fantasy Tactics', I will eagerly accept it. I hope that news from you in the near-future will start to revive some optimism to other backers and onlookers.

Best of luck.
(Let me know if you'd consider accepting remote part-time developers! May just try to contact you via your site)

Can't say I'm excited but at least it's good this is no longer with Playdek. Though I hate the fact that they got paid for the Kickstarter and more they got paid for the IP and design too. Freaking scam artists.

Well, at least you're going to go back to the original idea the original developer sold us on. If you make the game crap, though, you're reputation will be just as ruined as the people that gave up on this project. I have very little hope for this, so good luck.

Potential life for a long dead project? I am very happy to see that. I have no expectations on seeing anything actual developed, but if you are able to turn salvage this game and turn out what was pitched I would be happy to renew my financial support for the effort. Best of luck.

Superbacker

Well, Little Orbit, I truly hope you are up to this challenge- you've pretty much inherited an enraged clientele, courtesy of being shafted royally by Playdek. Hopefully you just didn't end up the fall guy for this mess of a project. I have to admit that I have no hopes for the project as it currently stands, but considering my expectations for this were in the realm of "Duke Nukem Forever 2 is going to happen before this comes out", you've only to provide something to surpass all expectations of me and probably many other disillusioned backers.

I'll give you guys a chance, admitting that you plan to deliver only a single-player experience is off to a good start. Just PLEASE give more frequent updates. This campaign and Jeremy Soule's are the two that taught me to give up on Kickstarter. So even if you succeed and deliver I'm still done with this nightmare of a website. But I'm eager to see what you guys deliver. Good luck! :)

If anyone is salty about this don't take it personally. If anything, this post gives me a lot more hope than any of the updates previously where I was being told the focus of the game was shifting in order to get something/anything delivered to backers, etc. That's not what I signed up for, and if it never happens then it never happens. I was young and naive and full of "Broken Age" hype back then. I think we've all learned a lot of valuable lessons of the years about kickstarters and tempering our expectations. So... thanks for trying to right the ship. I'm excited and hopeful, but if nothing happens I won't be angry at you either. Best of luck!

Hoping for the best and wishing you good luck as you get started. I think everyone here simply wants a great game to emerge with some of Matsuno's magic on it. Posting regularly with progress will be the best way to begin to earn back trust.

Thank you for this update. As it has been stated previously throughout the comments, Please be sure to give us regular updates. I'm not sure if any of those Kickstarter projects you backed ever went silent for extremely long periods of time or not, but I know a lot of us have. Silence is never the right answer. Any update is better than no update, though some substance between those updates would be appreciated.

I'm very glad that you're taking over and interested in delivering what was originally promised. It is the reason we all backed, so I'm not sure why anyone would consider that bad news except that it will just take that much longer to be developed. Though, I'm sure most of us weren't expecting anything worth our time to be developed before, so the wait won't be much of an issue for many of us.